Even in the UK/EU where merchant service fees are capped, once you start ordering in the 10's of thousands of Euro/Pounds... merchants start insisting on non-card payments because that 1% starts hurting at that volume.

Back in the day (early 00's) I ran a shop in Australia and I had to maintain accounts with my suppliers that needed to be paid off monthly. I did this via bank transfer (including a line of credit I could use for bank transfers). My card fees for sales would sometimes dwarf my staffing costs and this was 20+ years ago when a lot of people still used cash exclusively even when paying a few hundred bucks.

Most countries got rid of both problems years ago.

In the UK and many other developed countries a basic, fee free, bank account with a debit card is almost a human right. There is no law stopping you, in fact in the UK it's law that any resident has the right to open a basic bank account that must be free at the point of use (very few accounts have a monthly fee in the UK and those that do typically come with benefits that pay for it). No one here is unbanked except through choice. This is because a lot of transactions occur using interbank transfer (called "faster payments" in the UK) that again, is government mandated that everyone has access, free at the point of use. Your pay goes into your account using this system, bills, rents and repayments leave your account using this system.

Visa/MC hate it as they don't see a penny from this system.

The US is the only developed country I know of that does not have an inter-bank payment system that is free at the point of use. Although it seem the US is doing all it can to rid itself of its "developed" status.

Interbank transfer systems have all but eliminated cheques, I've never in 30+ years been paid for work with a cheque. The last time I received a cheque it was a refund from the DVLA after I sold a car (for the unused portion of road tax) and the last time I used a cheque was to buy a car in Australia in 2013 (Australia's interbank transfer system used to take 24 hours, it's now instant) and that was a banker's cheque, I've never used a personal cheque, given or received, in my 40+ years of existence and suffering upon the surface of this planet.

Unbanked is what we expect from developing countries... and cheques are an anachronism from the 50s.

Maybe it's proof of the existence of Afluenza and it's debilitating side effects. Doctor Payola recommends seeing two of daddy's contacts.

Aside from that, kids find way to game system. Not really anything new, I've seen this in the workplace for a few years. Some people use a marginal disability to openly skyve off work or shut down any criticism against them, it's a new move in a very old game though... People game systems, even when it harms a system that is meant to help people who genuinely need it. If you know a way to fix it without harming people who genuinely need help, I'm all ears.

It could be worse, a lot worse.

Imagine if those useless middle managers were tasked with doing something important rather than merely wasting the time of people capable of doing something important.

Probably stolen from the UK or Western Europe. Maybe even as far away as the US.

A lot of the UK's stolen cars end up in Eastern Europe, some even keep the UK number plates for that authentic feel.

LAG restrictions have been lessened or even gotten rid of in Australia and the UK. Air travel is not as bad outside the US.

Batteries are becoming a problem for airlines because people are entitled fuckwits and won't follow basic instructions (I MUST charge my phone no matter what people tell me) as they keep bringing damaged batteries on board which conflagrate. So they're getting banned at the insistence of airlines rather than governments.

So, buy the DVD.

With Netflix, I'm afraid we'll have to pause the movie to put the kids to bed. Then come back and discover that Netflix has dropped it from their catalog.

As far as I can tell, the Netflix business plan has been about erasing the archives so people will have to watch their new stuff. And if you aren't fast, even their new stuff becomes archival. Then, "Poof!"

Pssst! Hey kid. Wanna buy some vacuum tubes?

Your conditions warrant medical (mental health) treatment and education. Which should be aimed at enabling you to handle the university, employment and the world with the tools that enable you to deal with life. From that point on, a university should treat you as any other student. You either can or can not handle the work given you. Either with the abilities you were born with or those tools our health care system should provide you with.

It is unreaonable for every institution to have to maintain (at their expense) duplicated programs to handle every case that comes along. Where I went to public school, the district had excellent, off campus programs for special needs students. Where they could concentrate the care resources to efficiently handle cases. Instead of expecting the general school faculty to dedicate any extra time to handle them. With the hit or miss skill set that would result. The problem with this approach is that parents of little Beavis would be appaled by the neighbors noticing him loading onto the short bus every morning. Other school districts, unable to deal with this parental pressure just mainstreamed everyone. To the disadvantage of those in need of special help.

Why?

Odds are that, if I'm building a flat pack on my system, I've built the application from source. So the dependency issue doesn't exist. Because they were checked by the build scripts (in any competent source distribution I've ever seen). Or the binary was downloaded through a package manager which also handles dependencies.

For some small s/w house or within a company for enterprise apps, maybe. But there are already tools for this.

Many businesses have a check endorsement printer that also reads the MICR code and performs an electronic transfer on the spot. I can't even get home and log on to my bank account before the withdrawl is made.

Given this level of subterfuge, all I can say is, "Sloppy job, Mossad."

Almost as bad as the people who try to get their iPhone payment app running.

Good point. So here's a solution to make everyone happy: A precondition for the acquisition of Warner Brothers (by anybody) should be to place WBs current library in the public domain. Then the unions and everyone else will have plenty of work to do creating new content.

After all, isn't this what copyright is supposed to encourage? The creation of new works?

These will make excellent teaching devices for the kids learn, in short order, how to bypass said controls.

Kids will do what they can get away with.